CSI: Vegas, Romance/Hurt/Comfort, Sara S./OCC (your choice), One Shot, ff implied

Disclaimer: The characters and anything else regarding C.S.I. belong to their creators and not me. I wish I made ANY money right now, but people don't even want me to cook for them anymore. Sad. I'm really rather good...

A/N: So this is Sara's POV, but you can choose with whom she fell out of love. I'm profoundly struggling with a much bigger piece right now, so maybe I'll just keep posting oneshots until I tamed the story that's been biting my ass lately...

Out of love

I'd never have thought this moment would finally come. Washing over me like those warm rays of early autumn sun, flashing in-between the trees and through the windshield of my car. I was listening to Band Of Horses and haven't stopped listening to this particular album since. I'm not in love with you anymore. I still love you, I guess I always will, however I'm slowly but constantly falling out of love with you. Do you want to know what made me realise? Sitting there in that car, driving, I was looking up at the trees, their leaves just starting to change their summerly green into all shades of beige, red, orange, amber and bright yellow. My hand went over to the passenger seat, just like it had so many times before, reminding me that you're not sitting beside me anymore. But this time, I didn't find myself longing for the reassurance of touching your thigh as I used to do, when I was driving. I didn't feel that emptiness when all I felt under my palm was the ragged fabric of the rim of the seat. I just thought about what it would feel like, if there was someone sitting beside me in that car again. Someone. Not you. And I started wondering what that woman would be like, should be like, to make me happy again, to bring back that long lost feeling into my life of being giddy all inside, weak in the knees, shivering with anticipation and desire. With love. Someone, whose thigh I couldn't stop touching every time I could afford to take my hand off the gearshift. The realization of what that thought meant hit me like an epiphany. I'm not in love anymore.

After you'd left I suffered, I cried, I moped, I became cynical, I almost went insane: I hurt. So bad, that some days I didn't even find a reason to get out of bed in the first place. Since you'd gone my life wasn't what it was supposed to be anymore. Just a hollow, tiring string of hours, consisting of one feeling. Loss. Sometimes I feared it would stay this way forever, that I would never be able to look at things the way I used to, when I was happy. When I was with you. When I had a reason to get up, a reason to work faster to make time fly by until I could be with you again. To silently slip into the bed you already slept in when I got home from work, spoon you from behind, place butterfly kisses on your neck and listen to your quiet little sighs, your heartbeat, just to fall asleep gladly and completely contently with you in my arms. Blissful.

I thought I'd never get over you. The idea of someone else by my side, taking your place, so to speak, was unbearable. No one could ever give me what you gave me. Which is still right, somehow. But I don't want someone to take your place, I want someone to take up new space in my life, space that has never been occupied before. The space I obviously made, entirely unconsciously, that day in the car, when I started thinking about what that someone by my side should be like. Those years since you left have made me realize a lot about myself. I hadn't been alone for a very long time before you broke up with me and while I was with you, I never used to spend much time thinking about myself. It was always us. Or you, for that matter. I actually thought about you most of the time. But now it's all about me. I know what I need now, I know who I am, more than I ever did before. And I know what I want. I want someone sweet and kind. Someone patient with my temper, patient with my insecurities, patient with my needs, patient when I take time for myself. Someone caring. Someone beautiful. I won't settle for second best, I want it all. The women I've dated and of course those I've been with have always been beautiful. Speaking of you, stunning even. I have always felt like I didn't belong at their side, like they could have had anyone, so why choose me? I don't know, I guess I have been lucky so far. I want someone content with just falling asleep with her head resting on my shoulder and my arm settled on her stomach one night, while making a porn star blush at the things she does to me the next. Someone who can appreciate something as simple as a butterfly sitting on a white daisy on a bright summer day and watch it in almost childlike bewilderment and fascination, but doesn't bitch when I thriftlessly spend too much money to buy her a pair of heels or take her out to a much too fancy restaurant. Someone who can get her hands dirty planting herbs into the pots on my patio in jeans and a t-shirt but will dress up to the nines for a night out at the theatre or opera. Someone who doesn't flinch at the thought of listening to classical music but who will stand in the front row with me at a Queens Of The Stone Age concert. Someone who has a temper, too. Someone I will bang heads with just about which movie to rent on a Saturday night. Someone I just want to push up a wall and kiss senselessly in the middle of a fight we are having and completely forget about the previous argument. Someone who will scorn me if I keep dropping my clothes wherever I go and whatever I do. Someone who will change the sheets, just because I hate doing that and laugh at me when I pout if I have to do it myself. Someone who will make me quit smoking gain, for one and one reason only, to make me stay with her a few years longer... Someone who loves me with all her heart and doesn't hold back. Someone who speaks her mind openly and doesn't hide from serious things that have to be talked about. Someone who looks at me lovingly and longingly. Someone who takes me as I am.

You have no idea what it means to me, not being in love with you anymore...